SF supervisor puts easier restaurant rules on menu

S.F. RESTAURANTS

Santo Esposito serves original Italian coffee, coffee specialties and Italian pastries, but is not allowed to toast a bagel or serve warm food at his North Beach Cafe in San Francisco, CA on April 3, 2012.

Santo Esposito serves original Italian coffee, coffee specialties and Italian pastries, but is not allowed to toast a bagel or serve warm food at his North Beach Cafe in San Francisco, CA on April 3, 2012.

Photo: Siana Hristova, The Chronicle

Photo: Siana Hristova, The Chronicle

Image
1of/8

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 8

Santo Esposito serves original Italian coffee, coffee specialties and Italian pastries, but is not allowed to toast a bagel or serve warm food at his North Beach Cafe in San Francisco, CA on April 3, 2012.

Santo Esposito serves original Italian coffee, coffee specialties and Italian pastries, but is not allowed to toast a bagel or serve warm food at his North Beach Cafe in San Francisco, CA on April 3, 2012.

Photo: Siana Hristova, The Chronicle

SF supervisor puts easier restaurant rules on menu

1 / 8

Back to Gallery

After investing $160,000 in a small cafe in San Francisco's North Beach, Santo Esposito says he isn't making a dime.

Not because his espressos aren't selling, and not because his customers don't like his pastries. Cavalli Cafe is languishing, Esposito said, due to the city's maze of convoluted restaurant laws.

San Francisco SupervisorScott Wiener feels Esposito's pain. Wiener has introduced legislation that he said would simplify the city's permitting process for restaurants, cafes, bakeries and bars. If his proposal passes - it could go to the board for a final vote as early as Tuesday - Wiener said it would make it easier for small food ventures to do business in the city.

"It's been exceedingly difficult and unnecessarily complex for small businesses," he said. "Basically, 30 years of well-intentioned planning got turned into a Frankenstein monster."

For example, Esposito can sell bagels, but he can't toast them. His permit doesn't allow for him to keep a toaster on the premises - or a panini press. As a result he's so limited in what he can sell that he's trying to live off the sales of coffee and Danish, he said.

"We can't do nothing," said the Italian cafe owner, who recently became an American citizen and hoped to find success here. "I make pasta that my customers love. The city says I can't do it. I make sandwiches, the city says no. I put a couple of tables outside and I'm fined $500."

The city has 13 categories of food establishments. Wiener said they're so complicated- he points to the one that would allow a proprietor to serve ice cream in a cup, but not in a cone - that they've become ridiculous. The rules limit everything, from the types of foods a restaurateur can serve to the number of chairs in a cafe.

Under the proposal, unanimously recommended by both the Planning Commission and the Small Business Commission, there would only be three restaurant categories: full-service, limited restaurants and bars. The primary distinction between full-service and limited restaurants would be a liquor license, Wiener said. For a bar designation, liquor sales would have to account for the majority of revenue.

"We're a foodie city," Wiener said. "Right now the categories are way too rigid. We have to stop micromanaging."

The legislation, which as of now has little to no opposition, would likely go into effect by the end of May. For Esposito it would mean that he could toast bagels, make pasta, serve sandwiches and have as many chairs inside his restaurant as he wants. He wouldn't even have to reapply, Wiener said.

"It opens an opportunity for restaurants to be innovative," said Rob Black, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, a San Francisco trade group in favor of the legislation. "It will help further the city's reputation of being leaders in culinary innovation."

The new laws would not, however, change formula retail controls or undo neighborhood caps on how many restaurants and bars it will allow. And neighborhood commercial districts will still typically require a conditional use permit for new full-service restaurants.